8. 1986 (Jun.) - Dragonlance (D&D) - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - War of the Twins (Dragonlance #5)

Series: Dragonlance Legends Vol. 2

On we go with the Legends series, this time the twins and Crysania travel to the future... well future in relation to the Cataclysm at the end of the first book of the series, but it's still the past in relation to what happened in Chronicles and their own original time. I think one of the interesting things they do with this series is precisely the exploration of important events in the world of Krynn through time travel, with familiar characters.

This is kind of a less interesting read than the first chapter, focused as it is almost exclusively on the 3 main characters, with Tas only coming in at the end. Raistlin continues to be one of the most interesting characters in the universe, being at the same time evil, a really evil at that, while being basically the hero and having some moments of humanity which are really quite touching. This is also a sign, however, that he is by far the most complex character in the series, Caramon isn't that developed, he's stopped being a drunk, and towards the end of this there seems to be real growth as he realizes what Raistlin actually is. However, this has seemed to happen before without much coming from it. 

Where we face problems is with the only female character here, Crysania. I don't know if she's just naive, but if she is that, she is it to the point of absolute stupidity. I know love makes people do silly things and look at their beloved through rose-tinted glasses, but this is really too much. Come on, Raistlin is literally wearing black robes, how she never seems to see through him, or to dismiss anything negative she finds about him, makes her kind of a weak character defined by "her man"... which is pretty bad when she's the only female character here. I hope the third volume will turn her character around, really. Also, again this is an all white novel, which is only to be expected, unfortunately. 

All this being said, I'm looking forward to the third volume, the story is compelling, and I want to see if they fix the problems present in this volume, also after a while you spend so much time with these characters that they become part of the family, which is cool.

TL;DR: 6/10 Not a bad read, but can really improve, looking forward to the third volume.

7. 1986 (Feb.) - Greyhawk (D&D) - Gary Gygax - Artifact of Evil (Greyhawk #3)

Series: Gord, the Rogue #2

The second volume of Gord, the Rogue is a considerable improvement over the first one, it is also the last volume published officially by TSR, before Gary Gygax leaves the company. When he does he will take Gord with him, but this doesn't mean we won't have more stories, seeing as Gygax will keep writing them independently.I will be covering these as they come along. 

As I was saying, this is a substantial improvement over the previous installment, the story feels more focused and purposeful, there are more good characters, I particularly liked the Catlord and his world, and Gord develops in interesting ways with his new powerful ring. This ring allows Gord to transform into cats, from house-cats to panthers and it adds quite a lot to the story and the possibilities. The enemy is also better defined here as Iuz and his henchmen. However, it's not in this volume that we get any kind of diversity of characters. Despite having a lady in revealing clothes on the cover (Deidre, I think), she has a tiny part to play, nor are there any people of color in the book, at least not that I noticed and not with prominent roles. Unless you consider goblins, gnolls, elves and orcs to be PoC, which I don't.

This series is nowhere as compelling as the Dragonlance books have been, at least not yet, but this is a substantial improvement on the previous installments, and as such I want to see where this is going, even if Greyhawk stories will no longer be based on Gord. However a cool thing here is that you get to meet people that I only knew by name such as Melf (of Acid Arrow fame) or Mordenkainen (of Sword fame, among others). I have actually never played in the setting of Greyhawk (just Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) so it's cool to get these weird names present in the spell titles into context as characters.

TL;DR: 6/10 Quite a bit better than the previous one, not amazing.